Labuan – saskatoonie.com

December 6, 2023December 6, 2023

Farewell Labuan

Palm Beach Resort - Paradise in Labuan

November 27th was our final night in Labuan. We had the most amazing weather with rain only occurring at night or early morning. It normally rains every night but we had two or three nights with no rain at all.

The only days we missed our morning walk were Remembrance Day and November 10 when we went shopping for long pants for Gary. We averaged 8.3 km every day but our morning walk varied between 5 km and 7.5 km. Our hotel room in Labuan was on the 4th floor, which is actually the 3rd floor if you don’t take the elevator. We did the 3 flights at least 4 times every day, some days more. We feel like we built a bit of leg strength and stamina. Three flights of stairs is 120 steps. A minimum of 480 steps up each day. Going down was easier.

Our final day in Labuan we missed breakfast as we headed to the airport at 5:30 am. We hate those early mornings. We had a bite to eat at McDonalds inside the Labuan airport. It was icky, but at least the the coffee was like back in Canada.

We landed in Kota Kinabalu and our luggage arrived without grief. A quick and cheap Grab ride got us to the Promenade Hotel 4 hours before check-in. We left our luggage at the hotel lockup and went for a walk. We stopped by the massage place where we went last year, to our dismay they don’t take credit cards. We had a fruit smoothie next door to the massage place to tide us over. After a refreshing mango and yogurt smoothie we started walking again.

There are some new massage places along the street. We decided to try one that offered a 2 hour oil massage for RM115 which was $33 CAD. They took credit cards. It actually was an amazing workout!

Our first night at the Promenade Hotel presented a challenge. The rooms are freezing cold and the thermostat does nothing. Even shutting off the thermostat does nothing to warm up the room. Secondly, the water from the sink faucet and shower was not even hot, tepid at best! No hot shower to warm up. The biggest issue was our room had a door to an adjoining room. The gap under the door, actually 2 doors, did nothing to stop the loud party sounds next door that kept us awake. Being situated right off the elevator was the final flaw with our room assignment. People are fairly inconsiderate when they get off the elevator at 1 am. Loud.

The next morning we got moved to the 11th floor. As soon as you step out of the elevator you can feel the hallways are warmer. Our new room was good, a long way from the elevator, no adjoining room and hot water!!

The next morning we went camping. If you want to hear about tenting at the base of Mount Kinabalu and our trip to the most northerly point in Borneo, read our next blog in a few days.

Our next blog will have our full camping summary with some amazing photos.

November 19, 2023November 27, 2023

Tropical Heat

Exploring Labuan

Since Remembrance Day we have not done much off the hotel property other than our daily morning walk. The other night we took the hotel shuttle into town, about a 20 minute drive. Our destination was JJ Nazar Utama Jaya Restaurant. We have enjoyed the other JJ Nazar restaurant location several times, we thought a switch was in order. This second JJ Nazar restaurant is located near the UTC and Labuan Central Market. Unfortunately the market vendors were all packing up around the time we arrived. The market is a huge building that contains hundreds (we guess) of vendors. They sell all kinds of things from fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, stingless bee honey and clothing. We need to get back to buy some stingless bee honey. We got some last years and it’s great in tea for a sore throat. It tastes much much better than Buckleys! The honey is dark and has a citrus flavour.

To keep our restaurant comparison fair we ordered Vegetable Pakora, Dal Makhani, Chana Masala, Garlic Naan and Mango Lassis to drink. The verdict is in. The Naan and Mango Lassis are better, the Chana Masala is similar and the Dal Makhani is much inferior at this second location. Also, the air conditioning is run by the women with long sleeves, long pants and head scarves. We were cold. Actually the muslim women wear clothing that would be comfortable in 15ºC. It never goes below 27º here. Black long sleeve t-shirts are common for the men. Hot! Hot! Hot! They must think we are wimps. Supper was RM64.40 under $19. CAD

After we left the restaurant we walked around a night market and ate some Apam Balik, one of Malaysia’s favourite snacks. They are made with watery sweet dough painted into a little pan and cooked for a minute or less. Peanuts and chocolate are sprinkled on top and when removed from the pan they are folded in half. See video below from last year.

After we walked around the market we checked out the super store nearby. They have everything from booze to food and soap. We were now killing time until our 7 pm pickup. We got out of the huge mall and store area and went across the street. There was too much traffic for our driver to easily find us. Once across the street we went into an Indian store in search of some coconut oil and deodorant. The guy at the till was glad to sell us India’s most popular hair coconut oil. Its 100% pure oil and works great as a skin moisturizer and protectant. It seems to keep from getting heat rashes and fungal rashes which can happen when you are constantly sweating in 80% humidity. Gary swears bugs get stuck in the oil before they can bite. Conversation with the Indian store guy went much like this – Where are you from sir? Reply, Canada! We then hear how great a place Canada is and they have welcomed so many Indian immigrants. As hard as Trudeau tries to discredit us, we still receive a favourable welcome, even from Indians. Yay Canada! 🇨🇦

We have mentioned previously how welcoming the people of Malaysia are. Here in the East Malaysian States of Sarawak and Sabah as well as the Malaysian Federal Territory of Labuan where we currently are located, people are even more friendly and welcoming! We had a little baby across from us at breakfast, he really gave us the stink eye! He was pretty cute! His parents said he stares at any stranger – we think they were being kind! The Hotel was busy this weekend with the Malaysian Airforce group stationed here in Labuan. There was lots of little kids, many families here have 3 or 4 kids. There were lots of people around and in the swimming pool.

The next day, Sunday was not nearly as busy. We had a late start to our daily walk. We left the hotel around noon and did our usual stop at the Warung Chailuk pit stop for lemon iced tea. We enjoyed 6 little donuts and 4 pieces of deep fried banana. Tomorrow the owner/cook is taking a week off. Unfortunately this coincides with our last week in Labuan. One full week of walking each morning with no iced tea. We may switch to ice cream at the little store nearby. Either way we are going to miss the table and chairs overlooking the beach while enjoying the cooling breeze. It was a great way to cool down before the walk back!

November 17, 2023November 17, 2023

Remembrance Day 2023

November 11, 2023 Labuan Malaysia

On November 11 we attended the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Labuan Commonwealth War Cemetery.

There must have been more than 200 people including dignitaries, military and civilians attending and participating. The service was occasionally paused for flyovers of jet fighters, a helicopter and huge propeller cargo planes. There were dignitaries from Labuan, and representatives from the UK. For example the British High Commissioner representing Brunei. Also the Malaysian, British and Australian military were well represented. The wreath laying took some time as every group took their turn laying their wreaths.

There are British, Australians, Indians and Malay soldiers buried at this cemetery. The religious portion of the service was interesting. The Muslim, Hindu & Sikh groups consisting of close to half the attendees went off to the other side of the cemetery for their respective service and wreath laying. The Christian service officiated by an Anglican minister here in Labuan continued where we were seated at the Colonnade. There were familiar prayers followed by The Last Post bugle, wreath laying, bag pipes and the marching of soldiers from Malaysia, Australia and Britain. The soldiers were impeccably dressed and in perfect timing and alignment. The sun was hot and so were they. It had rained until about 6am that morning and the temperature was well over 30ºC. The honour guards stood motionless in the full sun whereas we had tents shading us with electric fans blowing everywhere. They even supplied everyone with one of the old fashioned personal fans, like a ping-pong paddle that is embossed with ❤️ Labuan. Everyone but the soldiers.

The Labuan War Cemetery was primarily intended to commemorate the officers and men of the Australian Army and Air Force who died as prisoners-of-war (POWs) in Borneo and in the Philippines from 1939 to 1945; as well as fallen men who fought during the 1945 operations to recover Borneo. The POWs of Sandakan, the perished war heroes of the Australian 7th, 8th and 9th Divisions, as well as those of the Punjab Signal Corp and a few locals are buried here. The site was officiated by the Australian government in June 1953. The cemetery contains 3,908 graves of soldier in perfectly squared platoons, much like they would have stood in salutation when alive. The soldiers buried here are from Australian, Great Britain, India, New Zealand and Malaysia. Of the 3,908 graves, 2,156 are unidentified and their headstones are inscribed “Known Unto God.” Of the 1,752 identified graves, 1,523 were soldiers, 220 airmen, 5 sailors and 4 civilians of which 814 are British, 858 Australians, 1 New Zealander, 43 Indians and 35 Malayan. The other 34 Indians soldiers were cremated and commemorated on the memorial at the Indian Army plot.

We caught a ride to the service with the owner of our hotel. Our hotel is 15-20 minutes away from the cemetery and the shuttle times didn’t work so we really appreciated the ride. After the almost 3 hour ceremony, which was quite interesting, we were invited for a light lunch by the hotel owner at one of his other hotels. While the intention was a light lunch, the Canadian’s in fact left stuffed like little piggies. Linda was smart and only ordered chicken satay and peanut sauce but it was still a bit too much.

After lunch we spent an hour or two at the pool. Pool time goes by so fast sometimes because we don’t take our watches, we just check the time on our Kindles when needed. One day our first dip in the pool saw us in the water for over an hour. If we float around the one pool edge we can catch some shade or sit on a set of steps that are under some trees where we can stay cool and out of the sun. We do spend some time in the full sun while in the water, but even with a heavy layer of sunscreen you have to be careful. Our lounge chairs are always in the shade. It’s just too hot otherwise!

November 15, 2023November 15, 2023

Labuan Malaysia

Miri to Labuan

Our flight to Labuan was on time. It’s a short flight, only 35 minutes. We feel it’s important to mention the flight cost $50 each. It’s approximately 175 km. That’s one tank of gas at home, or 1/2 a tank on our truck. Flights in Malaysia are so affordable.

Welcome to Labuan

The hotel shuttle picked us up at the airport. We have the same room as last year, room 2317 so it feels like home!

After we got settled we headed out for a walk. We walked 7.2 km, the temperature was 31 and felt like 39. Later by the pool it was 32 and felt like 42. While we have not actually been in the ocean, we overheard a couple say the pool is much cooler. The pool is NOT that cool. Plus the other thing about the ocean is they have posted there are stingrays, to shuffle your feet in the water. The hotel supplies water shoes for your use. In addition, it’s a long stretch of grass and sand to the ocean and as we have found the grass is full of sandflies that love to bite some of us, more about that later! We are content at the pool overlooking the ocean and life is good. It is the same pool attendants and they remembered us from last year and which room we are in! They are so friendly! We had supper at the hotel and called it a night.

Our days here are settling into a bit of a routine. We have breakfast, Gary has one or two bowls of Sarawak Laksa that he loves and Linda has scrambled eggs or one of the noodle dishes they have. We haven’t gone hungry yet, there is always something you can find on the buffet. We always have a big plate of fruit too. After breakfast, we’ve been heading down the local street that runs along the ocean. For most of the journey you get a nice breeze off the ocean which helps keep us going. It’s been very hot and humid, hotter than we remembered from last year! We’ve been averaging around 5-6 km each day.

All the locals wave and greet us, even those driving by wave like crazy! There is a little shop about 2.5 km from the hotel where we often stop for a cold water or drumstick ice cream treat. There’s also a little food stall on the beach named Warung Chailuk (Warung = shop, Chailuk is the area) where we stopped last year as she had fresh homemade donuts. We were disappointed to see it was closed but Friday when we walked by she was there cleaning. We asked her if she was opening and she said Monday she was reopening. We then asked if she still made donuts, she was shocked that we knew about them and we explained we had enjoyed them last year. So Monday, we made the hike. It was cloudy and overcast and the walk actually was pleasant. We arrived just in time as there was a rain shower. The donuts weren’t quite ready but we had an iced lemon tea and we soon had 6 hot mini donuts. It’s good thing it’s a bit of a walk as we can’t do that everyday! We spent RM 10 on our donuts and iced tea, an amazing $2.95 CAD.

The staff here at Palm Beach are very friendly. Our cleaning gal remembered us from last year and greeted us when she saw us. She is very accommodating and for the most part starts her cleaning day at our room! The day after we arrived she came to clean so we grabbed our Kindles and went to find somewhere to read for a bit while she cleaned. We finally decided to sit on some lounge chairs under a palapa towards the beach on the grass. At one point Linda thought she saw something on her leg and rubbed it only to find it was a tiny bug and there was some blood. Turns out Linda gotten eaten by sandflies – over 30 bites on her legs and ankles. Considering we are the same blood type, bugs seem to love Linda as Gary never got one bite. It’s now day 4 of the bug bites and they are still red, inflamed and itchy. We were chatting with the pool guys today and he took one look at the bites and said “sandflies!” Linda is very diligent with the bug spray now and we avoid the grass. Paradise in not perfect.

The hotel has a shuttle that is free and will take us in town and pick us up at a designated time. It’s been great to have that available. We’ve been into town a couple of nights. Picked up some beer, snacks and a few essentials. We also plan it so we are there for supper and head to our favourite Indian restaurant JJ Nazar. The food is great. We leave the hotel at 4:15pm and leave town for the hotel at 7pm. On our recent trip to town a couple of guys were catching a ride to the airport to fly home to Kuala Lumpur. We got to talking and asked them about Indian food in KL. They gave us a restaurant name that we will check out when we are back in KL. They were quite curious how we ended up here in Labuan, it’s a quiet place we told them. While we were in the mall that night a young guy about 16 asked to have a selfie with Gary. We had a good laugh and he got a selfie. We wouldn’t call it celebrity status but we do stick out!

On our trip to town, Gary got haircut as soon as we arrived. Just after 4:30pm. Wouldn’t you know he had the same your guy cut his hair as the last time were were here. After an excellent haircut for RM 10 about $3 CAD the barber needed a selfie with Gary. Of course every one in the shop had to be in the picture. Gary handed the kid his phone to take another selfie… Check out his celebrity status below.

November 10 we headed out early to town to buy Gary a shirt for remembrance day. In the end he bought very dark, almost black pants with a metallic dark blue thread in them along with a white short sleeved shirt. We are now set for Remembrance Day. We sorta planned on buying some light weight dress pants for him here, but not ones made from recycled bottles. Did we mention they still use plastic straws here? They are magnificent, and don’t collapse. Total price of dress pants, hemmed in 30 minutes and a white shirt, under $60 CAD.

December 13, 2022December 13, 2022

Labuan to Kuala Lumpur

Packing up is hard after 2 weeks in one spot

It was a sad goodbye to all of the wonderful staff at the Palm Beach in Labuan. We spent 8 days there the first time and then 15 days the second time. The staff were great, the pool was beautiful and the room we had was perfect. Did we mention the weather was also ideal. Considering it is actually the rainy season, we really lucked out on the island of Labuan. It may have rained every night but the days were sunny and hot. It was good bye to Labuan and hello again to Kuala Lumpur and the Bukit Bintang neighbourhood. The day we leave Labuan was one of the few days it poured rain before, during and after breakfast.

We arrived back in Kuala Lumpur from Labuan on December 9. We decided to spend 2 nights back at the Swiss Garden in KL’s Bukit Bintang neighbourhood and then our last night near the KLIA airport which is about an hour’s drive south of the city.

The Swiss Garden Hotel Bellman (his name is Sabuj) was the first one to greet us, he is such a pleasant guy. More on him later.

Gary has a torn rotator cuff muscle that has caused him some ongoing problems, mostly a sore shoulder, neck and right bicep. Now back in KL we made good use of the Tropical Spa Massage where we started on Friday evening with a 30 minute neck and shoulder massage. We thought maybe we ordered the wrong treatment because we were directed to a room containing large easy chairs. We soon got the best 30 minute neck and shoulder treatment we’ve ever had. Gary’s gal was named Nanna, she had fingers of steel. She stood behind and eventually beside the chair and worked on the knots in Gary’s neck. Linda had the same treatment. Near the end of the treatment we were both directed to sit on a little wooden stool facing the big chair. They piled a stack of flat cushions on the chair with a towel over them to lean our head on. Then more digging and rubbing. Did we mention we miss our pillows and bed on this trip? The treatment cost was just under $30 CAD for the two of us.

After our massage we headed down the street to the Loco Mexican Restaurant. It was costly ringing in at 134 MYR about $42 CAD. Wow, back to the reality of higher prices after visiting Labuan where food and drink cost peanuts.

We both felt good after the neck and shoulder massage. The next day we booked a 90 minute full body massages which was 110 MYR plus 6% tax translating to $36 CAD each. Gary asked for Nanna again and she performed her magic. Continuity is your friend when you are considering massage therapists. She knew exactly what to do.

Later we walked down Jalan Alor (KL’s main street food area) and bought 3 large cups of fruit. One dragon fruit, one mango, and one pineapple for 9 MYR total about $2.75 CAD. We watched some ladies from Singapore devour 2 Durian fruits. They are large spiked fruit varying in size from 9 to 14 inches across. The fruit inside is creamy and delicious if you are genetically programmed to tolerate the smell. Gary likes them, Linda doesn’t. They have a stinky smell, so much so that they are banned from all public venues, buses, trains and hotels. But in this restaurant you can eat them to your heart’s content. Durian are expensive. Gary had a small serving one day at vendor, the cost was 30 MYR about $9 CAD.

We headed back to the hotel and showered off the massage oil. We walked to Petaling Street Market and Gary bought a new t-shirt for 25 MYR, $7.75 CAD and a new watch to replace his broken watch from Thailand (that landed on the tile floor) and the more recent watch from Labuan that died shortly after leaving Labuan. This latest watch was 60 MYR, less than $19 CAD. We hope it lasts a few days longer than the last one.

We arranged to get a late check out on Sunday December 11.

After breakfast on Sunday we decided to get one last massage before leaving KL. Off we trotted to the Tropical Massage. Gary’s gal Nanna wasn’t in yet so we both settled on new therapists. We paid 85 MYR each plus 6% tax about $28 CAD each for a one hour body massage. It was pretty good. Once back to the hotel about noon we showered and checked out at 1 pm. We arrived in the lobby to discover a tropical rain – more like a torrential downpour! Once checked out we chatted with our bellman and new best friend. He has remembered us each of the 3 times we stayed at the Swiss Garden Hotel. As mention previous his name is Sabuj and he is from Bangladesh. We knew he was married and has a 14 year old daughter but this was the first time he mentioned that his family still lives in Bangladesh and he hasn’t seen them since before Covid. It’s almost enough to bring one to tears. He is the most pleasant and welcoming guy and for us is truly the front line hotel diplomat.

We proceeded to order a Grab to get us to the airport hotel named Movenpick. Our first Grab driver cancelled which wasn’t a big deal as we don’t have a flight to catch. The second Grab was a tiny MyVi (car model name) compact hatch back. We immediately cancelled it and ordered a new car. We ended up with a Nissan. It was raining so hard that we took the KL Smart Tunnel. This tunnel has an adjacent storm drainage tunnel. The tunnel roadway is 6 km long. During forecast flooding conditions the road section of the tunnel is closed and the driving section is also used to divert storm water. Cool idea unless you are driving in it during a torrential rain storm and all you can think about is all the ‘what if’ scenarios. As we exited the tunnel we found almost dry roads and a few more KM down the road there was not a drop of rain to be seen. The dry conditions allowed the driver to put the pedal to the metal and at one point we hit 150 km/hr. He’s the driver you need if you are late for a flight, buy hey, we aren’t in a rush!

We check into the Movenpick Hotel which is a huge and very weird looking structure. It’s kind of neat inside. The internet really sucks here though! There is also a huge convention centre and mosque right next door. We can’t hear any of the airplanes taking off from the airport but we can hear the call to prayer!! Good thing we have to get up early otherwise the call to prayer would likely wake us.

Sunday December 12 we get up around 5:30 am, packed our stuff and ate breakfast which started at 6:30 am. We booked on the 8 am airport shuttle that is a 15 minute ride to KLIA. Our flight on Philippine Air was at 11:50 am. We are looking forward to getting home but not the process of getting there. We don’t look forward to the climate change either. But, even the milder cold is better than what has been dealt to Saskatoon the last month which will be fine. We’ll just be putting our flip flops on ice for a while. Back to shoes and sox.

So, the Movenpick Hotel turns out to be a Muslin owned property. No big deal but they don’t sell beer. There might be a slight withdrawal soon. The hotel was not as great as the price was high. The room had a funky sewer smell emanating from the bathroom. We left the light and fan on in the bathroom and shut the door. It’s not the first time there has been sewer smells in Malaysian hotels. There is something different with the construction of drains and traps in the bathroom floor in some places in Malaysia. We mentioned it at the front desk and they said they could get us air freshener – didn’t need the funky smelling air freshener smell in addition to the sewer smell. We did survive and definitely won’t be staying there again. The worst part was the very weak cellular signal and even weaker wifi internet inside the hotel. Actually the worse part was a swimming pool for men and a separate one for women. It was raining so we didn’t press the issue of a couples swim. They are going to get a poor rating on Google and Agoda.

We made it to the Airport December 12. At the baggage check-in Linda puts her suitcase on the scale and it weights 29 kg. It’s no big deal because we weighed it before leaving the hotel and it was only 21 kg. The scale reads negative 29 kg with no bags on it. Whew. The assured us our baggage was tagged through to Saskatoon which we found out later is not exactly the case.

Our flight PR 526 departs KL at 11:50 am. It’s about 4 1/2 hours to Manila. The flight to Vancouver PR 116 departs around 8 pm. It is over 11 hours long. In case you wondered, KL and Manila are in the same time zone. Either way it will be a long night. We eventually are scheduled to land in Saskatoon on AC 7746 around midnight in Saskatoon. We leave KL at 11:50 am and arrive in Saskatoon at midnight. That would seem pretty simple. 12 hours plus the time difference of 14 hours is a 26+ hour day. Who said there are only 24 hours in a day?

We uploaded this blog post from the Vancouver airport. We had a difficult time finding internet to get it done sooner. We are almost home! Yippee

Merry Christmas to everyone.

December 8, 2022December 8, 2022

Palm Beach Labuan

Two Weeks In Paradise

Thursday November 24 was a travel day! We had our last breakfast at the Royale Chulan in Georgetown Penang and caught a Grab to the Penang airport. We are headed back to Labuan in East Malaysia. We were in Labuan earlier in our trip and really liked it.

We had two flights – Penang to Kuala Lumpur (a one hour flight) and then Kuala Lumpur to Labuan ( 2 1/2 hour flight ). We got to the Malaysian Airlines check-in and the gal tagged our checked bags as “hot transfer” items as our layover between flights is just over an hour. We had a bad feeling about that. We easily found our gate and settled in to wait. Our flight ended up delayed by almost an hour! Finally we got on board and took off. When we arrived in Kuala Lumpur we had approximately 15-20 minutes before our next flight took off. There was an attendant at the gate calling for us and they had a golf cart and driver waiting for us. They loaded us on the cart and zoomed off through the airport. As Gary said, we even had wind chill on the golf cart as the guy hustled us to the next gate. It was a long drive – we’d never have made it on foot! He dropped us at our gate and took off to save some other poor travellers! First ever golf cart ride at that speed in an airport!

The gates can be confusing in the Kuala Lumpur airport. We’ve witnessed and been part of several chaotic boarding calls as they change gates and then change back and load two planes at the same time at the same desk. For example in Kota Kinabalu airport, gate 6a and 6b use the same departure lounge making seating impossible for latecomers. We were worried they may already have started boarding our Labuan flight but once we checked with the desk they said there was a slight delay and they’d start boarding shortly. Turns out this flight was delayed at least 45 minutes. We finally arrived in Labuan around 6 pm. Sadly, despite being tagged as a hot transfer and even our second flight being delayed, our luggage didn’t make the flight. It was left in Kuala Lumpur! We spent sometime with the lost luggage gal filling out forms and as a result the Palm Beach driver and van (half full of people) had to wait for us making the other guests endure our pain. We actually know better to be prepared for the worst but once again we are caught with no deodorant or extra electrical plug adapter in our carry on. Malaysia uses these huge United Kingdom style plugs. To add to complexity the outlet is 220v and each outlet has a switch on it. We were better off than the other 2 guys at the luggage claim – they were travelling from Bangkok to Labuan and their luggage went to Japan by mistake! Supposedly, they wouldn’t see it for at least another 2 days if they were lucky!

We are staying at the Palm Beach Resort and Hotel for 13 nights. It’s sorta the resting part of our trip. No more running around and making tours happen for sightseeing. We get to spend our days either reading, soaking in the pool or walking along the beach and trees.

Today we walked about an 8 Km round trip down the beach. We walked by many families and groups parked at the beach enjoying the beautiful cooling breeze off the ocean. While it is quite hot, you would never know it along the beach in the shade of the huge trees. We stopped for mini donuts and a cold glass of lemon ice water at one little restaurant. We passed a group barbecuing under the big trees. On the way back towards the hotel we walked by the same group again and they all said hello again. They offered us a taste and we stopped to sample the food. We were offered chicken wings and chicken butt (they are all washed out and clean) nicely barbecued. Gary tried a chicken wing and Linda took a nibble. It was delicious. We declined the butts. Maybe someday. They were a very friendly group of work colleagues out for a Sunday barbecue at the beach. We of course got asked the usual questions like “where are you from sir?” The usual “Canada” reply. We are an anomaly and stick out like a sore thumb. While deep down we know this, we don’t feel out of place, not too much at least. Although Gary is wearing a bright orange shirt on this day, we don’t really feel like fish out of water, at least not too much.

The locals are so friendly here and the usual question is “why would you come to this tiny island?” They don’t know what they have here because it is all they know. If Labuan wasn’t so far from Canada and especially Saskatoon, the place would be flooded with snowbirds. It’s not easy to get here but once you do the price is right, the climate is amazing, and the people are welcoming.

November 3, 2022November 3, 2022

Beach Vibe

Welcome to Palm Beach Resort

With the internet so poor at the previous hotel we spent extra money on our cell phone data plan to upload videos. Overall the Tiara Hotel’s internet wifi gets a zero rating. The internet just didn’t work. Disappointing! Check out the tour of our new hotel room at the Palm Beach Resort below. Also, the internet works like a charm at the Palm Beach!

October 31st, we moved to the Palm Beach Resort at the north end of the island. We got to Palm Beach Resort about noon. We were fortunate that they had our room ready. We checked in to 2317 which is room 317 in the 2nd building. What are the odds of having the same room number at two different hotels in a row? More strange things to come in a bit.

We spent some time getting unpacked, logging in to wifi, and getting to know the place. We checked out the pool which was being cleaned and closed until 3 pm. We went for a walk on the beach instead. When we got back to our room we decided to take the hotel’s free shuttle bus to town. We went to the lobby to register in advance. The shuttle was scheduled to leave at 4:15 pm and return back to the hotel at 7 pm. Perfect timing for us to get Indian food once again at JJ Nazar restaurant.

While in the lobby with almost an hour to kill we decided to take in high tea. The future diabetic version available here is chocolate hi tea. We ordered tea and ended up with coffee, but given the time restraint we drank the coffee. The hi tea tray was a sight to see! Chicken satay (2), bruschetta (2), churros (4) with chocolate dipping sauce, cream filled chocolate cake (3), white cakes covered in chocolate and flaked coconut (2), chocolate cream tarts with a chocolate crust (2), chocolate dipped bars or fudge (2) and candied orange slices (4). All that for 39.90 MYR which is a mere $11.50. Peanuts compared to the cost of diabetes! It was so sweet, what seemed like a brilliant and economical idea almost made us feel sick.

Once we were done eating we paid the waiter and caught the shuttle to town. We enjoyed another great Indian supper but we definitely had an underlying blah, sickly sweet feeling. When Gary went to pay the bill he noticed a guy wearing red coveralls, the kind that look like Halliburton. He took a double take when he saw the guy’s name on his coveys – David Lawrence. Plain as day. He asked the guy if his name was really David and yes it was. A whole conversation ensued, the irony of meeting someone with your last name, written on his coveys and the name of your brother is beyond belief. We exchanged info and will see if we can get some tourist tips from Mr. Lawrence. Apparently he worked in tourism before starting work in the oil industry so was going to reach out to some of his former co-workers on our behalf.

As soon as we stepped out of the restaurant it started raining. We opened our umbrellas (a sound investment that has paid off many times). We have felt like Mary Poppins a few times when the wind picks up but so far these two bit umbrellas have not gone inside out! We walked back to the Financial Building, our pickup point for the ride home at 7 pm. We bought a few beer for our room as the location of our resort is a bit remote and there aren’t any shops nearby. It’s about a 15-20 minute ride from town back to the Palm Beach Resort and Spa. It rained on and off for the evening, a normal evening in Borneo during the rainy season. Keep in mind it doesn’t get below 25ºC here. As Canadians we are so conditioned to seeing grey stormy skies and wind and thinking it’s cool outdoors but in reality you walk out the door and get hit with a wall of humidity and heat whether it is cloudy or sunny! So far we have really enjoyed the weather, rain or shine. We have also enjoyed the the extremely friendly people here Labuan. They are very welcoming to foreigners. In fact, the waiter at the JJ Nazar Indian Restaurant gave us a warm welcome and had to shake our hands when he saw us return. We are so glad we came here.

November 2, 2022November 2, 2022

Moving up island

We are off to a new hotel

The Tiara Labuan Hotel suite we had was great, the air conditioning worked well and the breakfast was good. They’ve had water issues there, not so much the hotel but the supplier, according to the info note left in our room. A few times we had low water pressure but nothing serious. The worst thing was poor internet, so poor it didn’t work. Disappointing! Check out the tour of our king suite at Tiara Labuan below. The internet was so poor at the Tiara that we couldn’t upload this video using the hotel wifi.

We are moving to the north end of the island. It’s a lot farther from town and hopefully quieter. We are hoping for some new scenery in that area so we’ll check it out at the Palm Beach Resort and Spa. Yes they have a spa, we plan on a massage!